Lost Tooth

jacob lost his first tooth on december 10, 2011. i didn't even know it was loose. ben and i both missed it. i was at work. ben had stepped out of the house. he and noelle got to work on getting the tooth out and they succeeded.

thanksgiving

my sister-in-law, becky, and i discussed how we never get pictures of our get togethers at thanksgiving. guess what. we really didn't do much better this year.

but, believe me, fun was had by all. except for my brother-in-law, scott. there was one moment that wasn't so fun for him. it was this one moment when he got beat by his daughter at texas hold 'em. it was fun for the rest of us though. scott probably wouldn't appreciate me mentioning this publically, but i don't think he reads my blog much. if he catches wind that i did mention this, he will probably give me a hard time for not mentioning the ONE time he won over the weekend. so there you go. i mentioned it. scott, just remember if you choose to give me a hard time that i have more texas hold 'em stories that i can share about to the world through my blog.

we had great food. we played games. we laughed.

we did manage to get one important pic.

yep, we finally met the twins. aren't they cute?! and isn't this pic like too cute for words?! over the thanksgiving weekend these cuties had another cousin, julian, who was born. welcome julian! we can't wait to meet you. we need to get you in the pic with the rest of the 2011 babies real soon.

i love thanksgiving and i love my family. thanks for coming every year Scott family and thanks for coming every other year burley family!

are you really already 3 months?!

guess who's 3 months old!

chase- 3 months old (12/05/11). onesie courtesy of lesley howe. i love that girl! it says, "tiebreaker, boys win!"

you are now rolling from front to back. you are delighting your family daily with giggles and even big belly laughs too. you coo and babble like you're seriously telling me something and i entertain it. you study your hands intently before deciding to taste them. you love to play with your feet and i love watching you play with them.

chase, thank you for letting me love and kiss on your juicy cheeks several times a day. You really have a knack for being cherubic.

Last year of single digits for Noelle

nine. can you really be nine?

you came ten days early. i didn't want you to come early. don't get me wrong, i was really excited to have you here. it's just that your due date was the day of my last final for nursing school and i didn't want to be distracted with studying for my final with a new baby. because i knew it was a possibility that you might come early, i had all of my homework and clinical hours done. i prepared myself as much as i could because i was so excited to meet you.

so 10 days after you were born i took my final. 5 days after my final we moved as a family to tucson, az. it seems like it was only like 3 years ago that we were packing up your 5 pound, petite body into your carseat.

your middle name, kate, is after 2 great women, your aunt kathy and aunt kathleen. these women are wonderful older sisters who have amazing strength, compassion and make people around them feel good and want to do better. your dad and i have so much love and respect for these women and you are living up to your namesake! you have big shoes to fill and you are not just doing it...you are doing it well.

now you're 9! before i was even old enough to have a reasonable desire to have children, i dreamt about you and you are even more beautiful and perfect than i imagined. you're smart, talented, organized, nice, unusual (in such a great way) and cute as a button. there was a boy in your class who happened to tell his grandmother (Fauna), "there are some girls who are pretty and some who are nice. ellie altop is both." you truly are a rarity on this planet.

for your birthday this year, you wanted lucky charms for breakfast, mc donalds for lunch, and macaroni and cheese with hotdogs in it and apples for dinner. we picked you and 3 of your friends, morgan, lydia and braquel up for your birthday lunch. you wanted a strawberry shortcake cake for your birthday.

here are some fun facts about you in your own words as you go into your 9th year of life:
favorite song: you belong with me
favorite food: macaroni & cheese
favorite book: read to your bunny
favorite movie: baby geniuses
what do you want to be when you grow up?: a teacher
best friend: andalyn, morgan & lydia
what are you good at?: i'm good at math
what are you not good at?: i'm not good at doing division
what do you want to accomplish while you're 9?: get better at division
is there anything funny about you?: i don't know

this family is so blessed to have you!!

Ben is 35!

before i write your official 35th birthday post, i have to post about your race. i can't believe i didn't do it sooner. i'm so sorry, but chase was only 4 weeks old at the time. please forgive me.

the tour of the white mountains was on october 1, 2011. you injured yourself just before i had chase. we think that it was your it band. you were still determined to do this race. i was worried you were going to aggrevate the injury. but i understood. you had already put in so much hard work training.

you completed and you did better than your last mountain bike race and i am so proud of you!

so you're 35 now! another year older, another year hotter! we met when you were 15. started dating when you were 17. married when you were 21 (i was 20). we were babies. i look at our engagement photo on our wall and...wow, we were babies. let's keep growing up together, mmmk? then one day, when we're looking back at the photo above we will say, "wow, we were babies."

does 35 mean you're officially middle aged? i don't know when that happens. i figure since you're hitting these landmarks before me, you can tell me when it happens. i'm going through this journey with you, but you do it so well that i can't visibally see it happening to you. so you tell me when it hits. it was just a couple of months ago that i told you, "i don't think that we're a young married couple anymore." it's funny. i don't know when we weren't a young married couple anymore. one day i just had the realization that we weren't. thanks for making me feel like we are still a young married couple...i keep falling more and more in love with you even though i don't think i can be any more in love with you. how do you do that to me?!